Rhetorical Analysis Of Whiteness By Langston Hughes

The explicit thesis of Hughes’ essay appears in the first paragraph. He asserts that “this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America--this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.”

Hughes primary audience is Black American artists, who he addresses with sincerity and disappointment in their failure to see their own unique and beautiful qualities. He is “ashamed” of the poet who wants “to run away spiritually from his race.” He also addresses his secondary audience, Black people who are not artistically inclined, with disappointment. He shows his distaste for the attitude that

“‘white is best,’” and ridicules people like the the Philadelphia clubwoman who turn up their noses at anything “distinctly racial.”
In the last sentence of the first paragraph, which defines the metaphor of the mountain, Hughes uses antithesis, stating that the Negro race wants “to be as little Negro and as much American as possible,” with the opposite words “little” and “much.” Another syntactical technique that Hughes employs is offsetting an appositive with a dash.

He states: “But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America--this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.” The three urges and desires that he lists at the end of the sentence are offset by the dash in the middle of the sentence. He says that the mountain is getting in the way of “true Negro art” and then lists the things that make up the mountain. This method of punctuation is effective because it makes the audience want to know what comes next. He mentions a powerful, blockading force, and the audience is more receptive to hearing what makes it up. He uses appositives throughout the essay, usually with slightly different punctuation. In the twelfth

paragraph, he states: “But jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America; the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul--the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.” In this example, he uses a dash to offset an appositive that enhances the meaning of the sentence, but is not crucial to it is it was in the mountain example. He uses an appositive, again, when he is talking about the Philadelphia clubwoman that he once met. He states that “now she turns up her nose at jazz and all its manifestations--likewise almost everything else distinctly racial.” This is used to show that she is not only opposed to jazz, but to anything that has anything to do with her race. The appositive is used to make a generalization about her taste in art.
Beginning sentences with coordinating conjunctions, most commonly “And,” “For,” and “But,” is rhetorically effective because it links ideas to form a logical argument. He shifts back and forth between ideas and makes a lot of leaps between ideas. Coordinating conjunctions hold the essay together and show the way he is thinking, so that the audience can follow it, and understand the leaps he has made.
The idea that the young poet wants to “run away spiritually from his race” is significant because it implies that his race is not good enough, or that there is not enough substance within his race to talk about. The poet implies that he wants to write like white poets, and implies that there work is somehow better or more sophisticated. He wants to leave his own race, and race instead “toward whiteness.” The “colorful, distinctive material” that African-American culture has to offer does not interest him; he wants to be as white as possible. Not only do white people fail to appreciate black art, but so do Black people themselves.
The mother using the n-word to reprimand her children is significant because it illustrates a distancing from the dirty, ugly, and crude people associated with the word. Families of the Negro middle class want to be as white as they can, and distance themselves from their own race as much as they can. The n-word is a derogatory term for Black people, and they are participating, by using this word, in the demeaning of the people they associate with it. This is a way to establish themselves as different and more sophisticated.
In the second and third paragraphs, Hughes expresses the point that middle and upper class Negro families are trying to distance themselves from their own race and become more white.

He uses occurrences that might happen in a typical family to support his claims and attitude about upper and middle class Negro families. For instance, in a middle class Negro family, the father is “is a chief steward at a large white club,” and the mother sometimes takes jobs sewing or supervising parties for rich families. The children attend a mixed school, and “the mother often says, “‘Don’t be like niggers’” to her children when they misbehave. In a high-class Negro home, the husband “is perhaps a doctor, lawyer, landowner, or politician” who married the lightest woman he could find. They attend fashionable churches. If they live in the North, they attend white theaters and movies, and if they live in the South, they have at least two cars and live as much of their lives as they can "like white folks." He uses these examples to illustrate that even black people view the white culture and lifestyle as superior to their own. They draw their own “color line,” and “the word white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all virtues.” While these things did happen, they were as much related to wealth and status as to race. Going to nice places and owning cars illustrate wealth within any community, not just the white community. And many things associated with white people were fancier or more

appealing. In addition, people wanted the best things for their kids, and white people during this time had the most opportunity. It makes sense that parents then would associate themselves with all things white and want art to illustrate how good they were.
The fourth paragraph marks a significant change in tone from pejorative and sad to hopeful. This is evidenced by hopeful diction in this paragraph that contrasts the sad and disappointed diction of the previous paragraphs. In the first three paragraphs of the essay, he uses words like “sorry,” and phrases like “standing in the way,” and “He is never taught to see that beauty.” It is sad to him that young Black children are not taught to see the beauty of their own culture. In paragraph four, when he talks about “low-down folks,” or “the so-called common element,” his word choices are more optimistic and vibrant. He uses the words “dance,” “spirituals,” and “jazz.” These words signal a shift in tone from pessimistic to optimistic.
The numerous sentence fragments that Hughes uses in paragraph four illustrate the cultural spontaneity of the “low-down folks.” He describes their activities: “Play awhile. Sing a while. O, let’s dance!” These sentences are daring and bold, just as these folks are. They are not afraid to be themselves, and therefore have an immense creative potential, Hughes implies. He also uses dashes differently here, not following the way he uses them in the rest of the essay. Similarly, lower class African Americans did not follow the societal rules that middle and upper class Negroes did.